


Tis' The Season for Comitting Treason

by Ncj700



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas thievery, Christmas tree hunting is stressful and no-one can tell me otherwise, F/M, Happy Ending, Katie is having a time, Keith looks chill but he’s having a moment too, nope - Freeform, season eight spoilers, things do not go as planned, this is in no way or shape based on real life, us writers need to tag shit too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 19:19:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ncj700/pseuds/Ncj700
Summary: Ah. Katie wished she’d just said no, because now she realised this wasn’t just Keith’s frugal lifestyle choices coming into play.This was a family tradition. Christmas thievery.She supposed it was better than the murder shed contemplated at the supermarket the day before, or fighting with a teenager for the last roll of wrapping paper.





	Tis' The Season for Comitting Treason

**Author's Note:**

> A Kidge Secret Santa present for phoenixmartinez-ride! Happy Holidays!!!!

The aftermath of the war has its ups and its downs. Becoming a Hawkins was one of the better things that happened to Katie, but she wasn’t prepared for the family Christmas traditions of breaking and entering. As it turned out, stealing Christmas tress was exactly as stressful as it sounded.

The desert hadn’t been a bad place to live, but strangely, after the war, Katie found herself more amenable to nature.

Maybe it was Ryner’s teachings, that they were all made from the same cosmic dust, that made her feel that way. It made her feel a little closer to Allura too.

Keith was happy anywhere quiet. He preferred rocky places though, as did his mother and Kolivan. They could have moved further to the north of the old American continent, but it was too close to everything, and transport was hardly an issue anymore.

They needed to be away from where everything started, so, they picked a small house in the old north west of Europe, surrounded by too much rock and heather and hardly any urbanisation, not unlike Keith’s old house in the desert.

It had everything modern, and space for Kosmo to teleport to his heart’s content, and hunt the deer and grouse and other animals that wandered around nearby. It certainly made the shopping bill cheaper, and they got fresh venison from it, so the rough and ready approach to life that Keith had never shaken from his teenage years worked out well for them all.

For the most part, it was peaceful. When Keith was needed with the blades, or herself by the garrison, they had their shuttles, or video calls to get by, and their families and friends visited often. Just not too often, and that was the way they both liked it.

There were times for socialisation however, and six months after their wedding, it arrived. Christmas. It had never been much of a celebration in her house growing up, though they’d still had a tree and stockings at the end of the bed, some things were less traditional.

Keith, however, turned out to be a grumpy Santa Clause, and somehow, their families, the other paladins, and their families were all going to be visiting on the holiday.

Thank god Kosmo had been hunting wild geese besides the venison. She’d have died if they had to buy turkey or chickens or sides of beef for so many people. Everyone was pitching in with their own dishes food wise, but the main meal, as hosts was on them.

As if that wasn’t alarming enough, decorations were also required. Bleh. Those were easy enough to get, but the unexpected hurdle turned out to be the central point of all of them - the Christmas tree.

It all started when Keith got back from his last trip out to the Daibazaal for part of the relief work removing and destabilising the formerly Galra occupied planets. She had already finished following the upcoming holiday, and had been searching around online for the bits and pieces they were missing for the preparations.

He leaned over the back of the sofa and gave her a peck on the cheek, stooping a bit to have a nosey at her laptop after he’d walked in.

“Welcome home babe,” she smiled, Laing their heads together and reaching a free hand up to his. “Meeting go okay?”

“Yeah, Mom and Kolivan have everything wrapped up. They’ll be here the day after tomorrow, hopefully” he nodded. “Found anything good?”

“I found a few places nearby for the lights, but the only place for a tree is in the city zone,” she frowned. “We’ll have to make a trip.”

“For the tree?” Keith blinked. “Why bother buying one when there are hundreds? Growing outside? For free?”

Katie was sitting still, and yet she still managed to pause as she listened to her husband, and the grand master plan slowly building beneath his words. “I’m not entirely certain those count as free - aren’t they on private land?” She asked.

“They’re not going to miss one tree,” Keith snorted. “The guy who owned the estate on the edge of Garrison City never noticed when dad took them. Though he did say Mum had to knock someone out one year…. I never believed him before but I think that might have been true now.”

Ah. Katie wished she’d just said no, because now she realised this wasn’t just Keith’s frugal lifestyle choices coming into play.

This was a family tradition. Christmas thievery.

She supposed it was better than the murder shed contemplated at the supermarket the day before, or fighting with a teenager for the last roll of wrapping paper.

Katie knew Keith hadn’t had a decent Christmas in a long time, and shed already been trying to pull together every over the top ridiculous decoration and celebration to make sure they started theirs off on a good note.

A real tree couldn’t be too much hassle, and she’d been to different galaxies in a sentimental robotic transforming cat robot, and fought a psychopathic zombie space witch.

“That does sound like your mum,” she agreed. “And I guess it would save us the money.”

She could handle stealing a Christmas tree.

* * *

Katie could not handle stealing a Christmas tree.

She had expected to be done before the night fell, but she had forgotten to take the dates and times of the sunset into full account, and had stupidly suggested the weekend.

And so, the she found themselves in the back of an old petrol car (The hover grid technology needed for didn’t exist except on the main roads), along a single-track road in two feet of snow, in the pitch dark because it was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

Her plan to leave at four had completely and utterly backfired as more soft flakes began to fall in a steady stream around them as they pulled in off the road beside the forestry estate.

Beyond the twelve-foot fence hundreds and hundreds of pine trees reached up into the dark, and Katie fumbled with her torch, breath crystallising around her glasses irritably as she stared at the fence.

It was twice her height.

Not for the first time since retiring from Voltron did she wish so much for her armour and its wonderful jet pack. She’d abused that thing way too many times trying to reach the high shelves. Staring at the fence she missed it dreadfully.

The only way it could have been worse was if it had been a digitalised fence with sensor based alarms, but thankfully, the lack of technology had spared them that worry. It was a simple wooden fence, built with horizontal slats, and she would easily be able to climb it.

She just doubted she could do it and retain her dignity. Not that it mattered much - she’d married Keith, and he would do anything as long as it was practical.

God, why had Kosmo been in sleeping mode earlier? The giant fluff ball would have saved this problem for her instantly.

“Do you want a lift up for the first few slats?” Keith asked, picking up and axe and a saw from the boot of the car.

It was like he could smell what she was thinking sometimes.

Stubbornly, Katie jammed her hat down over her ears and marched as steadily as she could through the snow towards the fence.

It was 100% as undignified as she’d expected. She was out of shape since her days as a teenage space hero, and she slipped on one of the lower planks. She didn’t fall far, but she landed on her ass into a pile of snow with a squeak, and when she caught sight of Keith’s face she wanted to hide in the snow.

Of course, he made it over the fence with no problems. Stupid Galra genes.

“How big of a tree are we getting? I don’t want something that reaches the ceiling. It’ll be a nightmare to decorate, and even more of a nightmare if Kosmo knocks it over,” she asked, looking around with her torch at all the trees.

“Nothing too big,” Keith agreed. “Let’s take a look further in.”

And so, they began to tread into the reserve through the snow. It was a lovely, picturesque scene, but they both had trouble once the left the dim path to explore a little more, and the hidden layer of branches beneath the snow mad them stop and start a few times.

The first time she nearly stumbled Keith caught her. The first time he got his foot stuck, she helped him with it in return and they didn’t lose one of his snow boots.

The fourth or fifth time she nearly got swatted in the face by tree branches being flung around by her unreasonably tall husband heading on before her, she started muttering Ryner’s words about comic dust like a mantra, send she could practically see Keith mentally screaming about patience and focus.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had a tree, but it turned out that their precise tastes were the problem. They had already cut down three trees because the first one turns out to have some sort of rot, the second they hadn’t checked the back of and had turned out to have half the branches missing.

The third, pidge had changed her mind about half way through, because it didn’t look like it had enough branches, or was sturdy enough to stand up to their giant space wolf (and Bae Bae, and Matt and C9’s kids, and the other paladins families).

Rather than waste the trees they had stashed them for Keith to come back with a chainsaw and Kosmo to teleport them back home for firewood, but they had been out for hours, so when the wound of an engine reached them she wanted to cry.

Diving down in a thicket of gorse bushes and brambles and tree branches, they huddle together, watching through the snow and dark as an inspector’s van pulled up on the other side of the fence, not far from their hiding place.

She had visions of Keith vaulting the fence to knock the poor guy out before, finally, he went back to the van, and pulled away again.

Spiting snow out of his mouth, Keith helped her to her feet before looking for the saw an axe he had hurled off somewhere in his panic. “I vote we just take the next reasonable tree we can find,” she ventured watching as he yanked the axe out of a tree trunk. “I think I’m turning into an icicle.”

Keith yanked a few more times on the axe before it was finally free. “Agreed.”

Eventually they found a tree, and Katie had to admit, it was exactly what they were looking for, and worth holding out for, but the amount of time it had taken to find and distance from the car made its worth dubious.

They had needed up traipsing to the other side of the forestry estate fir it, over two miles from the car. It wasn’t that far of a run - she was still military trained, and the Blades were always in warzones helping with aid at least once a month - but not with a stinking pine tree between the pair of them.

“How are we getting this back to the car?” She asked, after what felt like aeons of staring at the tree, the forest, the snow, and the general direction of the car in hopelessness.

“I could go get the car and drive it round?” Keith offered, walking over to the fence. “There’s another pull-off spot a bit further up the fence. There’s no gate, but we could probably get it over the fence.

Katie had found that sometimes - not all the time, but sometimes - being married was less of a blissful romantic dream that everybody imagined.

How in the hell was she supposed to get that tree over the fence? True, she’d been in bigger situations that required a lot more creative problem solving, but that wasn’t the point.

“We just have to get it over the fence.”

“You men I have to get it over the fence, if you’re going back for the car,” she corrected, still trying to decide what level of disbelief and irritation needed to be added to this event in their mission of Christmastide treason.

“You know you can, I know you can,” Keith shrugged. “It’ll be fine.”

“And if the inspector comes back?”

“Just hide in the snow like before.”

“Great advice from the team leader,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “Fine, I’ll deal with the tree. But take the saw and axe, then if somebody comes by I can just say I found it.”

Keith nodded, then took the tools from her, stooping a little and giving an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “Back soon,” he promised.

Katie grunted out a ‘ _love you too_ ’ as she glowered at the tree. It had taken two of them to lift, but Keith was right, she could do this. It just needed some of her creative problem solving, that was all.

Still glowering at the tree, but in determination, Katie crouched down in the snow, and started rolling the tree towards the fence,

It wasn’t like she was fighting a Galra sentry who could kill her at any moment. It was just a Christmas tree. It was perfectly safe.

* * *

 

The Christmas tree was trying to kill her, and it was not perfectly safe at all, and of Katie's assumptions were wrong.

The problem wasn’t her problem solving at least. She’d managed to push the tree at an angle up the fence and defy gravity until she was shoving the base of the trunk where Keith had sawed it down in a very precarious balancing act.

This was where she realised that even if she worked out something clever with mass and physics and formulas, she still had one problem; she was too short to push the whole tree over the fence, something her entire idea depended on to work.

It was after all the goal.

Stretching on her tiptoes as best she could in winter wear and two feet of snow, she tried jumping, trying to push the rest of the tree over the fence so the weight tipped it over.

Why couldn’t she have gone back to the car? That would have been more reasonable. Just because she’d never driven an old car before didn’t mean she couldn’t. Shed adapted to a robot space lion, and she hadn’t even been in the piloting programme. She could have driven a non-hover vehicle (unless it had a shift stick - she hated shift sticks).

She tried looking up the Land Force team on her data pad, but there weren’t any teams deployed nearby, else she could have exploited her power as engineering and development director and summoned one of them to come help.

Jumping in desperation was not her best idea, especially when she could see the car approaching through the snow and trees, the ancient drone of the engine unmistakeable. Instead of going over the fence, the angling she’d managed was displaced, and the loose top of the tree began to fall backwards.

With a sharp skid of tires the care stopped just as the tree flattened her into the snow.

“Pidge? Katie? Are you okay?”

“No, I am not okay!” She yelped, flailing without much success beneath snow and pine needle. “The tree is trying to kill me!”

One day, she would laugh about this. One day she would look back and reminisce with laughter. She’d done the same about some hair-raising moments from space already. But right now, being squashed by a pine tree was just the kind of mortifying she would rather pretend hadn’t happened.

She listened as Keith climbed over the fence and his feet crunched through the snow towards her. A few moments later she was free, and he was helping her dust off the worst of the snow.

“I’m sorry, this is all because I wanted a real tree,” he said, after they had finally managed to pull the tree over the fence between them, and had tied it to the top of the car. “I promise next year we’ll just get a fake one.

Before he could open the driver’s door, Katie grabbed his chin with one hand, making him face her directly. “Don’t apologise. It’s your tradition. Just because it got a bit crazier than putting up a pressibo doesn’t mean we can’t do it again next time. Though, maybe next year we just buy one, or pick a better time. Or better yet, we bring Kosmo. Or one of the Land teams?”

Leaning up on her tiptoes. “I mean, I love you an all-” she gave him another kiss to reinforced that promise. “-don’t get me wrong, but we could have been arrested, and a tree fell on me.”

The unsure calm to his mood chawed, and the impertinent, more confident smirk came back. “No falling trees,” he nodded. “I’ll remember that.”

“See that you do babe,” Pidge sighed, kissing him one last time before hauling herself around to the passenger side.

Later, when their family and friends arrived, she would feel the trip was worth it. Coran and Krolia and Kolivan would bring space decorations that match the blue and silver and purple tinsel, the white and purple lights, but for now, she really, really looking forward to a nap and the heater on the way home.

* * *

This may or may not have been inspired by previous family expedition to find a Christmas tree. ~~Long story short, we had a time.~~


End file.
